MOSCOW, December 21. /TASS/. Sofia Sapega, a Russian national, accused of seven counts according to the Belarusian Criminal Code, has written an appeal for clemency to the President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, Sapega’s stepfather Sergey Dudich said in an interview with the Echo of Moscow radio station on Tuesday.

"A decision can be made only after the trial. But we hope for [the Belarusian] president’s pardon. I know Sofia wrote a petition for clemency to the republic’s president. We’ll be waiting," he said.

On Monday, the criminal case against Sofia Sapega was handed over to the prosecutor to be handed over to a court of law. As the Belarusian Investigative Committee specified, the accused has finished acquainting herself with the materials of the criminal case in a legally-established procedure. Her house arrest has remained as a provisional measure.

The Russian national is accused of committing "deliberate acts aimed at inciting other social strife, strife based on a different social affiliation as committed by an organized group of individuals that entailed other grave consequences" and also of "organizing violence and threats of the use of violence against an interior officer and his relatives for the purposes of obstructing his lawful activity."

Sapega is also accused of "organizing pressure on an interior officer for the purpose of altering the nature of his lawful activity by way of a threat, through destruction or damage of property, the dissemination of slander and the disclosure of other information," "organizing violence and threats of the use of violence through destruction or damage of property in relation to an official discharging his official duties."

The Russian national is also accused of "organizing a threat of murder, violence, destruction or damage of property against a judge and the judge’s relatives, organizing efforts to obstruct in any form whatsoever the professional activity of a journalist, force him to give up the dissemination of information, as committed with the use of violence, destruction or damage of property, the infringement upon the rights and legitimate interests of a journalist," and also of "deliberately and illegally gathering and spreading information on the private life and personal data of another individual without the individual’s consent that materially damaged the rights, freedoms and legitimate interests of a citizen (the affected party)."

Sapega was detained at Minsk Airport on May 23 along with Roman Protasevich, one of the co-founders of the Nexta Telegram channel, which was recognized as extremist in Belarus, after a Ryanair flight made an emergency landing. Sapega and Protasevich were placed under house arrest in late June.